West Music is already back in business after Wednesday's downtown apartment fire

West Music is back open for business since last week's downtown fire

West Music was one of the Decorah businesses affected by Wednesday's downtown apartment fire, but thanks to clean up efforts, it's business as usual for the music store.

According to store manager Ann Kephart, the damage was pretty minimal to West Music considering the damage to the apartment loft next door to their store. The rafters and insulation in the attic space are charred, but the drywall in the ceiling was not burned.

West Music hired ServiceMaster for cleaning and deodorizing, from the smoke damage.

"ServiceMaster has done a great job. They brought in an ozone machine the first day, to help clean the air. We couldn't be in the store while it was running that first day. Now we are running air scrubber machines that clean and purify the air," said Kephart.

Considering how much water the fire department used to put out the fire next door, West Music had very minimal water come in. There was a little seepage by the furnace area.  As a precaution, electrical power and gas were shut off to the store the day of the fire. By the next day, the store had power. All the ceiling tiles were taken out Friday, and by Saturday all new ceiling tiles were all installed. Inventory was covered in heavy plastic during the process, and the store looks just as good if not better, before the fire occurred.

ServiceMaster continues clean up efforts in the store while Kephart and staff continue to inspect instruments and inventory. Instruments that are in cases, stored in a back room, amazingly do not show any evidence of what the building went through.

Rafters in the attic apartment above West Music were charred

The drywall in the ceiling in a storage area had water damage

Air scrubber machines run in the store to deodorize and clean the air

The store has all new ceiling tiles, less than a week after the fire next door